Closing Date
2025-03-01
Job Title: Senior Catchment Management Officer
Location: Durrington or Chichester, West Sussex (Hybrid, 2 days p/w)
Contract Type: Permanent
Hours: 37 hours per week
Salary: circa £50,000 depending on skills and experience
The Environment & Innovation team is at the forefront of Southern Water’s drive to enhance and protect the environment. Deploying the latest innovative solutions and working in partnership with our customers and stakeholders, the team takes a holistic approach to managing water quality and flow across the region. Currently delivering a £50million portfolio which rapidly expands to over £2 billion over next 10 years. This is a fast-paced team that is now expanding to continue to deliver a larger programme of sustainable and innovative solutions.
A brand-new position has been created to join our Catchment Resilience team as a Senior Catchment Management Officer.
Job Overview
Working within the Environment & Innovation department, this is a critical role underpinning the implementation of our Catchment Management strategies, which influence our 5-to-50-year strategic plans. The catchment management programme is driving environmental benefit via the delivery of our regulatory commitments such as the Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) and statutory plans such as the Water Resource Management Plan, Drought Plan and Water Resources South East.
The role holder will support the Catchment Delivery Manager to deliver the regulatory programme in relation to the environment, and in particular development of catchment-scale, sustainable solutions to meet our water supply challenges.
Key focus of the role is:
1. to support the Catchment Delivery Manager to technically manage implementation and delivery of environmental improvement schemes.
2. to lead local delivery of sustainable farming and water quality risk reduction projects. Securing liaison with farmers and relevant farming stakeholders to deliver in-field demonstration projects relating to soil conservation, carbon sequestration, precision farm monitoring and on-farm habitat creation projects, designed to support water quality improvements.
3. to be responsible for promoting and coordinating applications for our catchment incentives – farming measures, conservation grants and farm capital grants.
4. to raise awareness of water quality priorities with key stakeholders including the agricultural sector, water industry, regulators and catchment partnerships. The officer will be responsible for growing and maintaining priority relationships with farmer clusters, facilitators, advisers, agronomists and key partner organisations such as Catchment Sensitive Farming and NGO delivery partners.
5. to engagement with key stakeholders including the agricultural sector, other Water Companies, Catchment Partnerships, NGOs and internally within SWS to promote our Catchment First Programme and contribute to industry technical working groups.
About You
6. Experience of running events, workshops and group meetings and be a confident communicator.
7. Experience in data analysis, GIS Mapping systems.
8. Understanding of land-based designations relating to biodiversity and the water environment.
9. Knowledge of UK farming, farm policy and support payments.
10. In depth understanding of soil processes and soil management.
11. Experience of planning, public rights of way and environmental permitting.
12. Experience of water quality monitoring and data analysis and Arc GIS.
13. Experience of habitat and landscape enhancement projects (pond creation, hedgerow planting, tree planting).
14. FACTS and/or BASIS qualification (desirable).
Package
This role will be full time Monday to Friday with a hybrid approach to working between our Chichester/Durrington office and home. We are offering a salary of circa £50k as well as other benefits including:
15. Generous pension up to 11% company contribution
16. 25 days annual leave
17. Life assurance equal to 4x salary
18. Salary sacrifice electric car scheme (after 6 months service)
19. Health Cash Plan
20. Full funded eye tests
21. Two paid volunteering days a year
22. Occupational health service
23. Discounts with over 800 popular retailers
24. Digital GP service
25. Study support may be available for job-related qualifications
26. Competitive maternity leave and flexible return to work options
27. Cycle to work scheme
Join our Environment & Innovation team and see how far your career could progress with a company committed to career progression, training and development opportunities, our customers and the environment.
Does this opportunity excite you but you’re not 100% sure if you meet all the requirements for the role? Or are you concerned that ‘normal’ office hours aren’t possible given your personal circumstances? Whilst we can’t accommodate every flexible working request, we’ll try to find a practical solution. So why not engage with us and find out more about this role?
Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, because delivering water for life is our core purpose. To achieve this, we need 24/7 support in place to resolve incidents quickly and efficiently. All our employees understand the importance of out-of-hours incident support – because when problems appear, fixing them is our top priority. That’s why our people join together and support when and however needed to make sure our customers get the service they deserve. Joining the Southern Water family means you’ll become part of our incident support team. During your interview, your manager will speak to you about any incident support rotas that apply to your position.
Privacy Statement:
Please note: If you are an existing Southern Water employee, you will need to confirm within your application that your Manager is aware of your application.
All applicants must be eligible to live and work in the UK. You will need to provide evidence of eligibility (e.g. a passport or long birth certificate and proof of NI) and current proof of address (dated within the last 3 months), will be required as part of the recruitment process. If you do not meet these criteria, your application will not be considered.
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